Why not “acidically”?
BMJ 2006; 333 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.39057.536296.BE (Published 14 December 2006) Cite this as: BMJ 2006;333:1269
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I had the same experience about the word "acidic", although not as
serious as the author’s experience(1). One day I made an acidic buffer for
running a 2-D gel in our laboratory using acetic acid and instead I
labeled it as "Acidic Acid buffer". The next thing I noticed, one of my
colleagues loudly read that label and said: oh, did you just discover a
new acid? Since then, I am known as the founder of "Acidic Acid" and I
hope one day I can actually develop it.
(1) Imran Zakria, Why not "acidically"? BMJ 2006;333:1269
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
While I share the feeling that "basically" quite often has no basis--
if you will excuse the pun--it is no more nonsensical as a verbal gambit
than the time-honoured "well" which one meets in every conversation. One
hopes that examiners should look more at the factual basis of a response
and not on the basic introductory passepartout. Cutting an examinee short
with linguistic nitpicking should be declared a punishable academic
offense.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
"...but I learnt not to be a philosopher at the time..."
But aren't we all pHilosophers?
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests